1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to communication systems, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus that can display location information regarding a search item, thereby allowing the user to intuitively and easily recognize the schematic location of the search item.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, portable terminals, for example, a mobile phone, provide a variety of user friendly functions, such as a voice call, text message transmission and reception, digital broadcast reception, audio file playback, etc. In recent years, with a rapid development in GPS technology and portable units, the number of portable terminals employing a location base service (LBS) has increased, such as a route guidance, a friend's location search, information regarding the location closest to a place, for example, a hospital, a bank, etc., and a service for alerting an individual about traffic congestion.
However, conventional portable terminals provides a location base service (LBS) search for a particular place on a map and then display a map centering the particular place in a preset scale. This makes it difficult for the user to easily recognize the schematic location of a particular place, so the user must zoom out of the map. For example, when a user searches for H temple on the map, a map centering H temple according to a preset scale is displayed. If the user does not know the surrounding area where H temple is located, he/she must zoom out of the map to become more familiar with the areas around the H temple. Therefore, a system is needed which reduces the user's inconvenience by allowing to easily and intuitively recognize a schematic location of a particular place.